A Chinese company that the British Government sanctioned for selling boats to people smugglers is still offering the vessels on its website, The i Paper can reveal.

Concerns about the trade increased after a “mega dinghy” carrying 230 people was brought ashore in Dover in the early hours of Monday morning.

National Crime Agency (NCA) officials have said that many of the boats used are made to order in China, shipped to Turkey and transported to the French coast – often via Bulgaria and Germany.

Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co became the first boat manufacturer targeted under the new Global Irregular Migration sanctions regime last July, for manufacturing inflatable boats being advertised for people smuggling.

However, despite the sanctions targeting its financial assets and directors, the firm has continued to trade from the safety of China. Its website is still advertising boats, with a bespoke service to make them whatever size necessary.

It highlights the difficulties for the UK in disrupting the complex supply chains behind the English Channel crossings.

Experts are warning that using bigger boats is becoming an increasingly popular tactic with smuggling gangs who are responding to increased enforcement by French authorities.

Weihai Yamar’s website displays a series of options for inflatable boats with “economical” plywood floors, of the kind used in deadly boat crossings, and offered its service for “original designs” exported to Europe, adding: “Our team will work with you to satisfy all your needs.”

The firm is based in Weihai City, a major port and significant international boat manufacturing hub southeast of Beijing. It did not respond to The i Paper’s questions on whether it was still selling boats for use in Channel crossings, and it is not yet known who supplied the exact “mega dinghy” used in this week’s crossing.

While the number of migrants reaching Britain on small boats in 2026 is down by 42 per cent compared to the same period last year, experts believe smugglers are changing tactics to avoid French security operations in ways that are making crossings longer and more dangerous.

Conservative former Cabinet minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith told The i Paper the sanctions were destined to fail because they were not coordinated with European allies.

He said: “As a sanctioned company and with the Government’s pledge to apparently smash the gangs, it makes you wonder what kind of action they are really taking.

“What they should have done is if they were sanctioning them [the company], quite rightly, for their activity, they should have done it very publicly and at the same time worked with their counterparts in France, in Belgium, in Holland and even in Germany where there is a history of these rubber boats being built, and worked with them to sanction them at the same time on an arrest-on-site basis.

“That would have been a good policy.

“Instead, what we see is this sanction was almost hidden and not made a big public affair, nor does it seem to have been coordinated with other countries so that real action can be taken against this ghastly company who are trading in misery and death.”

Under the UK Government’s sanctions regime targeting illegal migration, Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co was subjected to an asset freeze and its directors were disqualified from forming or managing companies with UK connections. The firm is not known to have any presence in Britain.

The Foreign Office said at the time that it was “offering rigid inflatable boats for sale on online retail platforms which are advertised to people who facilitate the unlawful arrival in a country of an individual who is not a national of that country or resident in it, including, but not limited to, the arrival in the United Kingdom of individuals from France by rigid inflatable boats travelling across the English Channel”.

Keir Starmer visited China earlier this year in what was seen as a reset of diplomatic and economic relations. Downing Street said he had launched “a border security agreement with China to tackle the flow of Chinese-made small boat parts”.

But Luke de Pulford, founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said it was not in China’s political interests to help stop the small boats crisis.

“The state absolutely has the control to clamp down on this ruinous trade,” he added. “The fact they haven’t makes a mockery of promises given to Starmer.”

Shadow Home Office minister Alicia Kearns said the fact the sanctioned company was still open for business showed the Government’s “China reset” had not worked.

“Beijing waves through the boats, exports the synthetic opioids that kill, and will soon have a mega-embassy at the heart of our capital,” she added. “We have given China everything it asked for and got nothing back, least of all control of our borders.”

Largest boat to reach British shores

Home Office officials believe that Monday’s vessel is the largest yet to reach British shores, The i Paper understands. While the average length of a boat used in Channel crossings is around 10m according to the NCA, a French lifeboat crew said the dinghy carrying 230 people was 15m long.

French authorities said the vessel had been spotted at sea near the Paluel nuclear power plant on Sunday morning and was followed as it journeyed northwards up the French coast, picking up migrants from the sea.

By the time it reached Berck, almost 100 miles away, there were 232 people on board. A further 30 migrants who had been waiting in the water became stranded by the tide and were rescued by French ships, and two people “requested assistance” and were taken to Calais.

“The vessel continued its journey and was subsequently taken into custody by British resources,” said a statement by the French Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea. “Determined to reach the United Kingdom, migrants attempting the crossing in precarious boats refuse assistance offered by French resources and only accept it in situations of extreme urgency.”

A French lifeboat crew said that the overcrowded dinghy was “buckling under the swell” as it reached Berck and that a potential “tragedy” had been avoided, less than a fortnight after four people died attempting small boat crossings on one day.

The Government said: “This latest incident demonstrates the reckless and dangerous tactics employed by the criminal gangs facilitating these crossings, who continue to put lives at risk by cramming ever greater numbers of people onto unseaworthy vessels.

“Work is continuing with manufacturers, suppliers and international partners to prevent small boat equipment being diverted to organised crime groups, with more than 1,100 small boats and engines seized since the election alone.”

The Home Office said it was “making progress” with the fall in small boat crossings this year but would “go further” with a new agreement to increase surveillance and prevention work by French authorities.

Significant efforts are being made to break up groups of migrants before they reach beaches and prevent dinghies and engines being transported to the French coast, The i Paper understands, but local law enforcement rarely intervene when people have entered the sea because it is judged to be unsafe.

The use of larger boats, launch points at a greater distance from British shores and a system where migrants are picked up from the water are considered by the Government to be a mark of success in disrupting smugglers’ work.

Dr Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, said increased security on French beaches did appear to have “led the smugglers to adapt” but warned: “The boats are continuing to get bigger, which makes them more precarious and increases the danger to those on board.”

A spokesman for the NCA said the gangs behind small boat crossings were “versatile and agile”, and were continuing to “deploy dangerously overcrowded boats to maximise profit”.

“Organised crime groups use a range of supply sources for their equipment,” they added. “We are working with international partners to reduce the supply of this equipment, which is of poor standard and puts migrants at high risk.”

The NCA said it was working to take action against small boat equipment suppliers, as well as targeting high-ranking people smugglers and disrupting supply lines.